


Burrow

by biseelie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Introspective Tony Stark, Mopey Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 07:25:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7675390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biseelie/pseuds/biseelie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Funnily enough, when you're angry at someone, you don't want to see their stuff lying around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burrow

**Author's Note:**

> Fills the prompt for "lost and found" on my (arbitrarily generated) August Bingo Card.

After Russia, Tony spends two weeks recuperating. There are medical facilities in Stark Tower, ones he added in on a whim after the Chitauri invasion.

“I’ll recommend two weeks of bed rest,” the doctor says, wrapping up a long spiel on his condition. Apparently, the damage to his body is mostly superficial, if extensive.

She seems surprised when Tony just nods, but she exits the room, leaving him to stare at his tablet.

  
Tony supposes that he shouldn’t have been that surprised when Pepper made her biweekly signature-gathering visit. She took a look at the visitor’s chair in the corner. The chair is oriented so that facing Tony. Captain America’s shield, his father’s shield, is propped up in the seat, watching Tony.

“Security,” Tony explains, signing the first paper on the stack. His shoulder is a bit sore, but it’s bearable. “How’s the company?”  
Tony notices that Pepper’s eyebrows look different. New spa? More stress? She gives him a recap; after the Accords, SI stocks dropped fifteen points, but the tech market was in a slump this week that SI wasn’t hit too hard by. “We’re in about the same place. You should make an appearance at the next board meeting. It’s four days from now.”

“I’ll go,” Tony says, signing the last paper. Hadn’t he made Pepper keep the position so there was less paperwork for him to do?  
Pepper takes the clipboard of forms from him. “How are you and Happy?” he blurts out. He honestly wants to know, both Pepper and Happy have been with him for years and they are close, whatever else can be said about the state of their friendship.  
Pepper looks deliberately at the shield staring back at him from the corner. “We’re doing well. I’ll have F.R.I.D.AY. remind you of the meeting. You can attend remotely if you’re still recuperating.”

She leaves the room, high heels clicking on the linoleum floor.

  
Tony attends the meeting in person, wearing a suit and carrying two briefcases. No tie; the first tie rack he’d seen had been full of bright blue ties, just like Steve’s — well, he’d snapped that door shut. The board meeting is boilerplate, with one or two members eyeing the second briefcase greedily - they know what’s in the first one, but this one is oddly shaped enough to be a new prototype of some sort. He remains silent, just sulky enough that no one will suspect anything.

  
At the end of the meeting, he steps over to the floor to ceiling windows lining the meeting room and fiddles with the toggle on the briefcase in his right hand. Briefly, he remembers crashing through the glass a few floors above this building and blinks, trying to banish the image from his head. There are Iron Man suits that would probably catch him if he ever fell, regardless of whether he has a suit on him or not and this window can slide open, but…

He takes the elevator to the roof, switching out the briefcase suit for a different model. Once in the suit, he attaches the second briefcase to his back, waiting for the click of the electromagnets before heading straight up.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., I’m heading to your mainframe.” Flight information appears on the H.U.D as he ascends further into the atmosphere. He stays like that, until a sensor warns him that the air filters are struggling, before he heads down and west.

  
He arrives at the entrance to the mainframe several hours later. It’s an abandoned S.I. factory in the middle of Nevada, empty now except for a small aircraft hanger. Tony unlocks the door and drags it ajar, slipping inside. He heads towards a hatch in the floor, not bothering to turn on the lights. He pulls out a small device, which hums as the hatch pops open. He uses repulsors to slow his landing, not bothering with the ladder. With his luck, it would snap under the weight of the armour.

This used to be one of J.A.R.V.I.S’s auxiliary servers, back before he became Vision. Tony had asked him if he’d wanted the space back, but a magical glowing rock appears to have better specs than a distributed server network. Who knew. Maybe Tony should drop by Greenwich Village the next time he’s trying to upgrade his suit.

He really doesn’t know how to treat Vision, who insists that he isn’t J.A.R.V.I.S. while speaking with his voice. Tony still hasn’t reallocated for J.A.R.V.I.S. for any other use. Vision could have used some kind of extra safeguards after what happened at the airport in Germany. Tony has a meeting with Helen Cho and Rhodey, discussing workarounds for his condition (the Cradle definitely won’t work for this one).

Tony pops his visor and pulls the briefcase off his back. Pepper had known what it was the instant she saw the case, giving him that same look that she had back in his hospital room, back when she saw the shield. He sets the briefcase on a workbench meant for maintenance and pops it open. The shield stared back him, still scratched up. He should probably develop a primer specifically for vibranium.

Not that he would need it.

Tony closes the briefcase and places it between two server cases a couple rows down. He jets out of the room, closes the hatch, pulls the hangar door closed and then locks it.

  
He returns a month after he receives a letter from Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> First fic :) Thanks for reading! (I presume)


End file.
